Cousins. . .

After leaving KC, I spent a night in Manhattan with Ben and Kristin and then drove on to Goodland on Monday evening. Tuesday morning was beautiful so we went outside to play. Until last week, Emma had never been on a trampoline! I was curious to see what she would do. I lifted her up and let her run. She jumped and hopped and fell and rolled and giggled and squealed for 15 minutes!! She loved the trampoline!! My parents bought it when I was in junior high and I learned to do frontflips and backflips on it! I had fun watching her and decided I couldn't just stand by and let her have fun alone. I climbed up and felt like a kid again. I even managed to do a few backflips, which made Emma laugh really hard. It was a gorgeous day and we spent a few hours wandering around outside. Things that seemed so far big are now little and places that seemed so far away, were mere yards! We used to run across the pasture to a place we called the "Secret Tree", which really wasn't a secret, but a very fun place to be. Basically, it was an old tree, surrounded by a few pieces of concrete and a large pile of cut up logs. It seemed like such an adventure to me when we'd run out the back door and play there for hours. We made many mud pies at the Secret Tree. When I was home, I realized it was only about 100 yards away, not many miles, like it felt like when I was little!

Fun times on the swing

Casja, Sadie and Ariane with Emma

Casja, my sister Jane, Ariane and Sadie

Twins Joslyn and Joseph and their little sister Jasmin

Cousins: Casja, Jasmin, Joseph, Ariane, Emma, Sadie, Jessi, Hudson, Joslyn, Caleb

Emma played and played with many cousins last week while we were in Goodland! Tuesday afternoon we went to a park in Burlington and she played with Taylor, Brooklyn, Alexis, Hunter, Joseph, Joslyn and Jasmin while I got to spend time talking with my sisters Janette and Sharon. It made me sad to know that we'll be far away for the next few years and Emma won't get to spend much time with her cousins. I won't get to spend much time with my sisters. However, I was thankful for the time we had. We ate dinner with Janette and the kids and then went back to Dad's house. Wednesday we played with Janette's 3 kids again and went to see their new house way out north of Burlington. My sister Jane and her 3 kids came from Loveland Wednesday afternoon. Sadie, Ariane and Casja were great and acted like big sisters to Emma. It was just sweet to watch Emma play with all her cousins! My sister Linda came from Oklahoma on Thursday afternoon. She has Hudson, who's 2, and Emily, who was born in January. My niece Erica and her little girl, Bryana also came from Oklahoma with Linda. By Thursday night, we had a full house!